Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 710 posts

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#251

Post by frzen »

matwood wrote: post #196
imhoguy wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is still better than it was before, imagine you had to buy Adobe PS as a beginner, or you could just pir.... now you know why subscriptions.

Unfortunately for Adobe products the subscription is for a year, but your point stands. Office used to be hundreds of dollars, now you can start using it for $10/month and it includes cloud storage/syncing.

I pay monthly for adobe. Well I see the invoices that are paid for my subscription. Around €90 per month including VAT.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#253

Post by least »

lozenge wrote: post #247
solardev wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the OP, but I have to disagree too. Creative Cloud, IntelliJ, Figma, Google Workspace, Postman, Spotify, Vercel, Adguard, Google storage space, Alltrails, 1password.. They're all subscriptions and getting better all the time. Meanwhile it's the old purchased software like Windows and Office that get worse with every version.

I haven't seen any improvement in Spotify in years. Still can't organise songs in any meaningful way, can't rate songs, playlists suck, shuffle is broken, and they keep pushing podcast content when I never listen to podcasts. 1Password also used to sync to Dropbox for free and even had an HTML version that could serve from Dropbox.

Spotify still hasn't reached feature parity with Spotify when it first came out. Only recently did something as basic as lyrics return. It's still not extensible like it once was.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#254

Post by f1refly »

itake wrote: post #234
f1refly wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how do you sync passwords across my 3 laptops and 3 phones without a SaaS offering? Syncthing. Set up once, runs reliably forever. > How can I securely share credentials with family members? I don't do this either (and don't know anyone who does) but I imagine it'd be easy to just create a different shared database for the family for that? With password store, it's also possible to set multiple different gpg keys f…

Syncthing doesn't work for iOS https://forum.syncthing.net/t/syncthing-for-ios/16045 > it's also possible to set multiple different gpg keys for a specific directory. I don't think the last option is doable for most people though. this seems really complex...

Of course it doesn't work on ios. The issue you linked explains that a syncthing ios implementation would be useless because the background process can't run and the way filesystem access is managed makes the whole thing more or less pointless. It's available on all better operating systems though: Windows, macos, gnu/linux, android/linux, I think even chromebooks can run it?

> this seems really complex...

Like I said, it's probably not a solution for many. A second database with shared secret is very straightforward and transparent way that anyone can grasp I think. It would definitely pass the family test for me.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#255

Post by stanleydrew »

TingPing wrote: post #194
jonwest wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you feel as though Windows as a SaaS would be better? At least as a consumer I have a choice to say “I’d rather not upgrade to Windows 11 and get the worse experience” and not just login and see that those changes that I wouldn’t have upgraded for have just been pushed down as it happens with a SaaS. Windows, as an example, is an interesting one in that you’re paying once for a license and it’s good more or less i…

You don't have a choice not to upgrade Windows, not practically, it will go out of support and you can't do anything about it other than hope Windows Next will be more to your liking.

Wait doesn't this just make the point that SaaS is the proper model for Windows? Do you expect that Microsoft should "support" everything, for free, forever? If you want bugs to be fixed, or for things to improve generally, then you should pay something I think.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#256

Post by gruturo »

The subscription model for the diving app is literally what made me decide against an apple watch ultra. I was disgusted and angry at the idea - over a thousand bucks and it doesn't work until I also pay a monthly fee on top of it? Fuck it.

It feels like pure rent seeking (It certainly isn't using any remote resource while 60ft underwater).

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#259

Post by amarant »

I don't think subscriptions per se is that much of a problem, but for certain products I feel like there needs to be some kind of regulation mandating companies to enable some kind of self-hosted solution on the event they take their cloud down for whatever reason (including bankruptcy).

If the product requires online servers, and the company is not willing/able to keep those servers online, anyone who has paid for the product should at least have the option to drift it for themselves.

This is especially true for products that are upfront purchase+subscription. At present I just refuse to purchase such products cause I just know they'll stop working and then I'll own a brick.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?

#260

Post by massysett »

No: not if the subscription bundles useful continuing services, such as cloud sync or software updates. You mentioned password managers. 1Password’s subscription bundles in updates along with a cloud sync that works across the 4 devices I routinely use.

I once said “1Password subscription is nonsense, I can do everything it does myself, and for free,” so I cancelled it. After about six months of trying to use my own spreadsheets, I gladly went back to paying for 1Password.

Software wasn’t subscription years ago because we just didn’t expect as much out of it. In particular, we didn’t expect it to seamlessly work across multiple devices and platforms and keep its data synchronized.

If you don’t expect new versions and sync, go use free-as-in-Freedom software. It’s better than ever.

Post reply on HN